


Today

by Jenksel



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Brain Tumors, Casskins, Death, Do not repost to another site!, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Married Couple, Poison, Secrets, discussion about death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25270741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenksel/pseuds/Jenksel
Summary: Cassandra receives a reminder that today is the day she is supposed to die.  For the “Ticking Clock” prompt of The Librarians Prompt Month 2020
Relationships: Cassandra Cillian/Jenkins | Galahad
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24
Collections: The Librarians Prompt Month 2020





	Today

Jenkins blinked awake in the darkness and automatically rolled onto his side, at the same time reaching drowsily across the mattress for Cassandra. He patted his hand around in search of her warm, soft body a few times before it registered that she wasn't in the bed with him. Instantly he pushed himself upright and swept his now wide open eyes around the dark room, a sense of trepidation falling over him. He spotted the bright sliver of light coming from beneath Cassandra's sitting room door and he breathed a sigh of relief.

Jenkins threw back the covers and grabbed his robe from where it was draped at the foot of the bed. He hurried to slip it on and tied the sash, at the same time stepping into his slippers. They were barely on his feet before he hurried to her door and lightly pressed his ear against it; he heard nothing. He removed his ear and knocked softly.

"Cassandra? Are you in there?" he called out. In answer he heard first the sound of movement, then a rushed, high-pitched, almost guilty-sounding voice.

"Yeah! It's me! I'm here!"

Frowning slightly, Jenkins tried the knob. It was unlocked, so he pushed the door open and poked his bed-tousled head inside. Cassandra, clad only in her pink satin pajamas, was sitting on a chaise-lounge, her face turned to the door, her blue eyes wide and decidedly guilt-stricken. The immortal's sharp eyes spotted the corner of a wooden box peeking out from behind her thigh where she'd hastily tried to hide it. Jenkins entered the room and went directly to the chaise, sat down next to his wife. He checked the clock sitting on her desk as he made himself comfortable; it was just after midnight.

"Are you all right, Cassandra?" he asked with apprehension. "Are you feeling ill?"

The Librarian wet her lower lip with a nervous tongue as she looked away from him and dropped her head. Her yellow-painted fingers anxiously toyed with the hem of her pajama top. Jenkins sensed that she was debating whether or not to tell him the truth about why she was up and out of bed right now; he also sensed that it had something to do with the wooden box next to her. He reached out and laid one of his large hands over one of hers.

"Whatever it is that's troubling you, my love, you can tell me about it," he said quietly. "I'll not breathe a word of it to anyone else. I swear it."

Cassandra turned her huge blue eyes to look up into his. She then turned to the box and hesitantly pulled it out from behind her. Jenkins could see then that it was simply a battered old wooden cigar box. Cassandra tightly held onto it for a few more seconds, then finally she thrust it at her husband.

"Here—take it!" she said.

Jenkins hesitantly took the box from her hands and set it on his lap. He cast a final, uncertain glance at his wife before he thumbed open the simple brass latch and raised the lid. Inside the box was a bundle of six letters: One thick letter addressed to himself, four thinner ones addressed to Eve Baird and the other Librarians, and finally, one very thin letter addressed to Cassandra's parents. As he looked through the envelopes, a smothering dread began to clutch at the Caretaker's chest.

He set the letters aside and looked into the box again. The only thing left inside was a small, amber-colored, four-sided bottle. He picked it up and began to examine it, found a label pasted on one face of the bottle. He raised it closer so he could see it better. When he read the faded, spidery inscription on the label, Jenkins cried out in dismay and twisted his body around to stare at his silent, motionless wife, the empty cigar box clattering to the floor at his feet.

"This is the potion that was brewed by the three witches described in the play 'Macbeth'!" he exclaimed, his emotions pinballing between shock, fear, confusion and anger. "This is an artifact of the Library—and a very _dangerous_ one at that!"

"I know," she whispered, her eyes still fixed to the floor.

"Why do _you_ have it?!" he demanded, terror beginning to win the upper hand within him. "This is one of the most deadly poisons ever to be created! Even just one drop on your bare skin would be enough to—"

The frantic sentence hung in the air unfinished as the pieces fell into place. Letters addressed to the closest people in Cassandra's life; a bottle of quick-acting poison with no known antidote. All hidden away in her private rooms. Fear evaporated in Jenkins's chest as he fell back against the chaise, only to be replaced by stunning shock.

"Oh... _Cassandra_!" he whispered, his body numb. "Oh...Cassandra...my love—the tumor, it's returned!" The Librarian's jaw dropped in astonishment.

"What? _No_!" Cassandra turned her body so that she was facing him on the chaise. She reached out to grip his forearm tightly as she fixed a pleading gaze on him. "There's no tumor, Jenkins!"

"But…the poison…the letters…" he answered weakly, almost afraid to believe her.

"It's _not_ what you're thinking, Jenkins!" she assured him earnestly. "Not anymore, at least." Dumbfounded, all Jenkins could do in response was to cock his head and stare at her, his dark eyes questioning and pain-filled. Cassandra hurried to explain.

"Not long after I was diagnosed with my brain tumor and they told me it was...terminal," she began, her hand still grasping his arm, "I did some research on what I could expect when the time came. And I didn't like what I read at all." She dropped her head for a moment as she organized her thoughts.

"So I decided that instead of just waiting around for the tumor to determine when and how I died, that _I_ would take control of things and make those decisions for myself." She looked up as Jenkins gaped back at her, aghast.

"I picked a date," she continued clinically. "If the tumor hadn't taken me by then already, I was going to—" She waved her other hand at the bottle still clutched in her husband's hand. "If I hadn't come to the Library, I was going to do it another way, but once I got _here_ and I discovered all of the different artifacts that could do the job much more quickly and painlessly, well…so much the better."

"So you stole an artifact and hid it from everyone— _from me!—_ with the intention of using it to commit suicide!?" Jenkins rasped hoarsely. He hauled himself to his feet and took several paces away from the Librarian, unable to believe what he was hearing. Jacob Stone had told the Caretaker of Cassandra's intentions shortly after the Hoklonote mission in Oklahoma, but Jenkins hadn't wanted to believe it. He'd even convinced himself that Jacob must have somehow misunderstood Cassandra. He whirled around to face her as a thought came to him suddenly.

"Why do you _still_ have it?" he demanded, his voice threatening to crack beneath the weight of his fear and dismay. He waved toward the discarded bundle of letters on the chaise. "The tumor's gone and you've been perfectly healthy ever since! Why do you still have those letters? Why do you _still_ have this poison?!" He raised the fist holding the bottle and shook it at her.

Cassandra jumped up from the chaise and ran to him. She threw her arms around him and pressed her small body against his.

"It's not what you're thinking!" she told him, turning her face up to look into his eyes. "I hid the box away and just forgot all about it, that's all! I didn't remember it again until..." Her shoulders dropped as she stopped speaking. She released him and hurried away into the bedroom. A few seconds later she returned, her phone in her hand. She tapped the screen several times and then held the device out to him.

"Look!" she ordered. Jenkins slowly took the phone from her and looked at the screen. She had opened the calendar to today's date, and he noted that a notification alarm had been set to go off at midnight. There was one word visible in the heading.

_Today._

Jenkins looked up and stared at her uncomprehendingly.

"I chose a date to die and I set the alarm years ago to remind me—not that you'd anyone would ever _forget_ a date like that, but…I did," she informed him soberly and shrugged. "With everything that's happened to us since the surgery, I just completely forgot about it, until the alarm went off at midnight tonight and woke me up. When I saw it, I remembered the box and so I came in here to find it and get rid of it. I was going to destroy the letters and put the poison back where it belongs, but...well...you woke up and found me here before I had the chance." She went to him and slid her arms around him again.

"I wasn't going to do anything to myself tonight, Jenkins—I swear!" she murmured fervently, laying her head against his chest. "I didn't mean for you to _ever_ find out about what I had planned; I'm sorry if I frightened you!"

Relieved, but still somewhat shaken, Jenkins said nothing, only lowered his head to rest his cheek on the side of her mussy head. Thoughts flew through his mind like shrapnel.

"If you and I had ended up becoming closer _before_ the surgery—if the operation hadn't been successful," he began in faint voice, "Would you still have—" He didn't know why he landed on that particular question, but he needed to know the answer. Cassandra pushed away from him just enough to cover his lips with the fingers of one small hand.

"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "I just don't know. Does it really matter now?"

He remained silent as he tightened his arms around her again; she was right, of course, it _didn't_ matter anymore. She _had_ recovered, she was whole now, she was his and he was hers; they were Sealed now, _forever_. He turned to give her head a kiss and then leaned back from her.

"I'll replace the artifact in the morning," he said, recovering himself, then glanced at the bundle of letters. "What will you do with those?" Cassandra, making sure to keep her husband's arms around her, turned her body to face the chaise-lounge and leaned back against Jenkins's body.

"I don't know," she replied, frowning as she pondered his question. She twisted her body slightly so that she could tip her head back and look up at him. "Do you want to read the letter I wrote for you? I promise it's not anything traumatizing—just how I feel about you and how much you mean to me." Jenkins forced her to turn around and face him again, then bent to give her mouth a soft, lingering kiss.

"You can tell me all of that yourself," he rumbled affectionately. He took her face between his large callused hands and held her steady so he could look down into her large blue eyes with an exaggerated scowl on his face. " _After_ I teach you a lesson for scaring the living daylights out of me!"

He scooped his pretty young wife up into his arms and carried the laughing woman back to their bedroom. The poison, the letters and the desolate, fatal past they represented were left behind and completely forgotten by both of them as they deliberately moved on to resume the years of happiness together that stretched out before them.

**Author's Note:**

> Did the tags and fic summary scare you a little bit? Sorry! Thanks for reading it anyway! ❤️


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